Hi all,
Bob wrote, "It does not matter that it is a cheap carbon track pot or a very expensive stepped pot"
Actually it will as the more expensive pots and certainly the switched attenuators will be have much closer matching between the sections. I have had stereo pots so poorly matched there was a noticeable difference at low to normal listening levels.
I concur whole heartedly with Richard's comments, a good Pre, with low output impedance (my words), fed into a high impedance input is always the best way to go. This is simply down to good engineering practice.
There will, of course, be others that disagree with this, but they can't help being wrong